Heating apparatus



A. vB. CHANTRAINE. 'HEATING APPARATUS.

ArfPucAnoN men Aue. 1.a. 1-914.

1,402,568. Patented Jan. 3, l1922.

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wl/T/vEssEs. @ha /m/ /fw/j//L/f BY. f mvg/wm /17/5 A rrn/vfx ALPHONSE BAUDOUIN CEANTRAINE, 0F MABCINELLE, BELGIUM.

HEATING APPARATUS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented J an. 3, 1922.

Application filed August 18, 1914. Serial No. 867,324.

To all 'whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, ALPHONSE BAUDOUIN CHANTRAINE, a subject of the King of Belgium, residing at 26 Rue de lAnge, Marcinelle, Belgium, have invented new and useful Improvements in Heating Apparatus, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in furnaces and more particularly to furnaces of the kind employedifor heating long articles of large or small diameter such as gun barrels and the like.

Hitherto it has been necessary in order to uniformly heat such articles to turn or rotate them while in the furnace so that every part is in turn exposed to the hottest region. This turning of unwieldy and heavy articles involves the employment of a considerable amount of auxiliary apparatus and necessitates additional labour. lt is one Object of the present invention to dispense with the turning of the articles to be heated and consequently the auxiliary ap aratus.

y en heating long articles in a vertical furnace it has not hitherto been possible to heatl them uniformly throughout their length. It is a further object of this invention touniformly heat long articles either in vertical or horizontal furnaces.

Stated b'oadl this invention contemplates a Inetho of uniformly heating a furnace or the contents thereof by imparting a spiral or rotatory motion to the heating Hame oriiames.

According to this invention spiral or rotatory motion may be imparted to a plurality of individual regulatable heating flames distributed throughout the length of the furnace. Further features of the invention reside in the regulation of the inlets for fuel gas and air for each individual 'flame and the local regulation of the temperature in different sections or zones of the furnace. Other features of this invention will be hereinafter referred to in the description of the 'accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a vertical section of a furnace ,partly in elevation taken on the line A-B of Figure 2.

Figure 2 is a horizontal section taken on line C-D of Figure 1 and showing a recuperator in elevation.

Figure 8 is a fragmentary horizontal section taken On the line E-F of Figure igure 4 is a fragmenta vertical section. taken on the line G-H gf Figure 3.

Like reference numerals desti nate like parts 1n the several figures and t e flow of fuel gas, air and burnt gases is indicated by single, double and triple headed arrows res .ectively l l eferring to Figures 1 and 2 the brickwork 1 of the furnace encloses the combustion chamber 2 divided into sections 3, 4 and 5. Each section is provided with a fuel gas inlet 6 and an inlet 7 for preheated air. The object to be heated-'for instance a gun barrel-is indicated at 8 and has been broken away at one part to show clearly the fuel and air inlets of one section and the outlet 9 for the burnt gases of another section. llreheatin of the air required lfor each section of t e furnace is accomplished by means of the burnt gases exhausted from that section. A separate recuperator is therefore provided forl each section but one only is indicated at 10 in Figure 2. Cold air enters each recuperator at 11 and when heated enters a duct 12 leading to the combustion chamber. The burnt gases in each sect-ion pass through the'outlets 9 into the recuperators and thence by way of the fiuesu 13 tothe chimney. Dampers 14 are interposed lin the Hues 13 for regulating purposes.

The cold air for the recuperators enters at 1'5 and passes into the distributing duct 16 from which it passes by way of the ducts 11 .the respective recuperators. The fuel gas from a reservoir or producer enters at 17 and passes into a duct 18 and then through the ducts 19 leading to the combustion chamber.

The cover 20 is removable and provided with a refractory lining 21.

The air and fuel gas are injected or admitted to the combustion space under pres- 100 sure. For this purpose both iiuids may be stored under pressure in tanks or reservoirs and controlled by suitable cocks-not shown. ln the alternative compressors indicated at 22 and 23 maybe p-rovided at the inlet to 105 the air duct 16 and at the inlet to the fuel gas duct 18 for imparting the requisite pressure to the gases. The operation -Of the arrangement above described is as follows. The fuel gas and 110 nlo air enter the furnace inl a Asubstantially tangential direction so that a stream of gas parallel to a stream of air begins to c11culate in-a spiral path about the object to be heated. Such a path is indicated at 24 in Figure 1 and the respective inlets and pressures are proportioned and regulated so that the pitch of the convolutionsl is small and consequently the length of the flame and its path are as long as possible. The proportions of air and gas are such that by the time the flame reaches the outlet 13 all the gas has been oxidized progressively and the burnt gases pass through that outlet to the individual recuperator for that section. In this manner a highly uniform heating of the object 8 is accomplished without the necessity of rotating the object.

The furnace above described is provided with three heating sections but as many sections as are required may be employed. Each section constitutes a furnace per se and consequently a long body such as a gun barrel seventy or more feet long can be heated quite uniformly from end to end when all the sections are in use. One great advantage of this arrangement is that the application of heat may be locally con-l trolled with great precision. There arc cases where it is only desired to heat one portion of a long body and this can be accomplished by using the appropriate furnace section or sections. Again it may be necessary to heat one portion of a body to a higher temperature than another portion of the same body and this can be accomplished by regulating the amount of fuel gas and air admitted to each furnace section and by regulating the outlets for the burnt gases. To this end dampers'or controlling valves such as indicated diagrammatically at 26 and 25 Figure 2 may be interposed in the gas and air ducts 12 and 19, or preferably in the ducts 11.

The outlets 9 are proportioned and the dampers 14 are adjusted to pass the volume of burnt gases arising` from the combustion of the fuel and gas admitted `for each section.

In some cases the fuel and gas inlets are duplicated in each section as wellas the outlets for the burnt gases.

In the modification shown in Figures 3 and 4 the air inlets 27 are disposed equidistantly in a tangential man ner around the furnace whilst the gas inlets 28 are simi- 4larly disposed but in different planes.

The air and fuel gas inlets in adjacent sections can be arranged if required to admit the fuel gases under pressure in opposite directions so that the spiral motion of the flame in one section is in the reverse direction to that of the flame in the adjacent section.

Furnaces constructed as above descr1bed may be horizontal or vertical and various modifications may be made without departing from the characteristic features of the invention. Moreover, the appendedclaims are not intended to be limited to the constructions hereinbefore described by way of example only.

WhatI claim is:

1. The method of producing regions of predetermined variable temperatures in a common combustion chamber which consists in supplying each of a' plurality of regions in said combustion chamber with a regulatable supply of a combustible gaseous medium.

2. The method of heating an object in a furnace having a circular wall, consisting in centrally locating said object therein, admitting streams of air t0 said furnace under pressure, causing said air to impinge upon the circular wall of said chamber, admitting streams of gaseous fuel under pressure to said chamber, each of said streams being admitt'ed at a point adjacent an air inlet, and in the rear of said inlet, causing said fuel to impinge upon the air in the direction of its motion, adjusting the pressures of the air and gas streams respectively to each other, maintaining said streams at a pressure adapted to cause the body of gas to rotate between the whirling body of air and the object to be heated, and to continue its rotation about the object until said gas is consumed.

3. Themethod of heating an object of comparative length in a furnace having a cylindrical chamber, consisting in centrally locating said object in said chamber, admitting streams of air to said chamber under pressure at a plurality of longitudinally disposed inlets, causin ysaid air streams to impinge upon the circular wall of said chamber, and the resultant moving body of air to whirlabout said object, admitting streams of gaseous fuel under pressure at a plurality of points, each of which pointsv is adjacent an air inlet and in the rear of it; causin 'said fuel streams to impinge upon the -w irling body of air in the direction of its motion; adjusting the pressures of the air and gas streams respectively to each other, and maintaining said streams at a pressure adapted to cause the resultant body of gas to rotate between the whirling body of air and the object to be heated and to continue its rotation about the object and in contact therewith until said gas is consumed.

Signed at Brussels unis first day' of August, 1914. i

ALPHONSE BAUDOUIN CHANTRAINE. 

